Nut...

[kreig]

                                                      http://organicdesign.org/peterson/guitars/ji_mugshot_big.jpg

                                                                        Earvana . . . blah, blah , blah

                                              if you are searching for a perfectly perfect pitch, this will get you closer.

 

[Wana_make_a_guitar]

Yeah, but that'd be a beeyarch to play.

 

[Steiger]

The woody woodcaster is an exotic piece

I can see cocobolo (sp), flame maple, purple heart, ebony pinstripes on a maple body. Is that a bocote neck? Am I missing any other woods?

What are the knobs made of?

 

[Mor Paul]

You know what? I like that guitar. Not something I'd play, but certainly something I'd look at.

 

[Steiger]

It's not to my personal tastes myself but I can only imagine how much work was put into the woodcaster and I think the result is awesome.

It's the warmoth ideaology of guitar building "1.Build your pending reality" taken to another level and then some.

I think I meant to post this in the wenge guitar thread as well.

 

[capt hook]

Yep Krieg, looks like it would work but tough to play!! I think there wouldn't need to be So many variances on the fret spacing if there was a compensated nut in place first. I have also used compensated nuts first and THEN trimmed certain frets forward or backward that still needed attention for the perfect tune.

 

[kreig]

What I was saying is that we got along just fine before the compensated nut fad, I question their claims, and if you notice on their site,
they state their claim against a "typical" guitar.

Once again, if you play with a certain product, without the listeners knowing you are using that certain product, chances are that no one
can tell.

 

[capt hook]

unfortunately I can tell very much and I suspect many other people with a good ear for tone can too. It drives me crazy hearing an out of tune cord. I suspect you are right that many people just live with it, or they have never heard what a "truly" compensated nut can sound like. It's like being satisfied with your good old Sony standard definition tv... untill you see high definition tv... just NO comparison.
IMHO of course.

 

[tfarny]

Kreig, I've had an earvana and the compensation aspect of it is not hype, it's true and the difference is definitely worth considering. Unfortunately, it's made of crap materials and the installation is ugly and funky. If I had 300 pounds to spare and were in England for some reason, I'd look up Funkyphil and get one of his compensated nuts for sure.
Haven't you ever played an open A or E chord and gone "damn, this thing is out of tune!" and then checked, and it was in tune? Notice that the F chord barred at the first fret sounds like moldy cheese but as you move it up above the 5th fret it sounds fine?

 

[Mor Paul]

I'm guessing this is similar to playing the third of a scale (on a trumpet, at least). It needs to be raised to be in tune.

 

[Funky Phil]

Kreig, I've had an earvana and the compensation aspect of it is not hype, it's true and the difference is definitely worth considering. Unfortunately, it's made of crap materials and the installation is ugly and funky. If I had 300 pounds to spare and were in England for some reason, I'd look up Funkyphil and get one of his compensated nuts for sure.
Haven't you ever played an open A or E chord and gone "damn, this thing is out of tune!" and then checked, and it was in tune? Notice that the F chord barred at the first fret sounds like moldy cheese but as you move it up above the 5th fret it sounds fine?

£100...extra £60 if the frets need dressing :guitaristgif:

 

[kreig]

Tfarney, I appreciate your input, but I'm still a skeptic . . . but if anyone can make me a believer , I'm still listening . :help:

 

[blue313]

Try plugging into a good chromatic tuner and playing each fret on each string after its all tuned up.  On my peterson tuner, it definitely shows some variance on a non compensated nut.

 

[kreig]

Anyone remember the jellifish pick? http://www.jellifish.com/faq/index.html

The one that was in those full page color ads in every guitar magazine for months and months ? (A Fortune in Marketing !)

They have documented "clinical" proof, too!

The Earvana is "fixed" as opposed to "adjustable" . . . and regular nuts are fixed, so what is the difference?
Am I missing something? :icon_scratch:

do I need more than adjustable saddles to intonate?

I'd say that uneven pressure from your chording fretboard hand/fingers is more the culprit. imo 

I'm still listening . . .

 

[Funky Phil]

Hopefully this should clear up some confusion about compensated nuts...

When you fret a note you are bending the string, making the note sharp.
Open strings are not pressed down, so they are not sharp.
The fretted notes are made sharp by different amounts...the G most of all, top E least, etc.
So to make the difference between fretted and open notes as small as possible, some compensation is required.
(But a different amount on each string)

It has been pointed out that notes at the first few frets are most affected (on guitars without nut compensation).
This is simply because the saddle intonation is set so that the 12th fret is in tune.
So the closer you get to the 12th fret, the more in tune you get.
With a correctly compensated nut, you still intonate at the 12th fret.
But because all the frets have some compensation (think about it...), the guitar is more in tune at any fret.

Now I'm not saying that this can make your guitar "Just Intonated" or in tune with the harmonic series.
Or that it can magically make you play better!
It makes each note more in tune when you check it with a tuner.
Now what's wrong with that?

(Secret message to Warmoth...I know you do!)

 

[stubhead]

Guitars (and keyboards) are by their very nature out-of-tune. Perfect tuning to a harmonic series is called "just intonation". There has been a very conscious decision to "temper" each note of the harmonic series slightly so that an instrument could be played just slightly, equally, out-of-tune in all 12 keys. Galileo's father and Johann Sebastian Bach were early proponents of different types of tempered tuning. Steel guitarists have been having these arguments for decades; pianists and harpsichordists have been feuding with string orchestras for centuries... A compensated nut can make common open chords play more in tune (not a minor thing :icon_biggrin but it doesn't address the fundamental problem, which is that Western music is all out of tune.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation

 

[Funky Phil]

Guitars (and keyboards) are by their very nature out-of-tune. Perfect tuning to a harmonic series is called "just intonation". There has been a very conscious decision to "temper" each note of the harmonic series slightly so that an instrument could be played just slightly, equally, out-of-tune in all 12 keys. Galileo's father and Johann Sebastian Bach were early proponents of different types of tempered tuning. Steel guitarists have been having these arguments for decades; pianists and harpsichordists have been feuding with string orchestras for centuries... A compensated nut can make common open chords play more in tune (not a minor thing :icon_biggrin but it doesn't address the fundamental problem, which is that Western music is all out of tune.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation

I am talking about making a guitar play in tune to the same degree as a keyboard.
(I don't hear keyboardists complaining about being out of tune)  :dontknow:

For those seeking "Just intonation"...how about the fretless option!

 

[kreig]

O.K. . I only have 30 min. for lunch,

The purpose of the comp. nut is supposedly for being able to ensure that playing chords up and down the fretboard are more uniformly in tune. Yes/No? edit : (and play against a keyboard?)

To challenge this, last night I intonated my $300 Stagg Les Paul copy.editAnd tuned it Standard 440 A), I played the simple M7 barre chord, from the open position ,all the way up in half steps til the EM7 at the 12 fret.

I paid close attention to the pressure exerted while playing the chords, I let them sustain.

The end result was the chords were perfectly in tune ALL the way up. There was ZERO oscillation in the playing of the chords. Period.

I'm out of time and will come back to this thread later today.sorry
EDIT:
also, lastnight I did earvana's test - tune low E string,then play that same string up to E#,F,G,G#,A. You should notice that the sting goes out of tune per earvana - * my tuner tracked that the notes were in tune !
also they state that playing an open EM7 chord to a D chord (1st position) you'll notice a difference in it being out of tune - * I did'nt notice any, both chords sounded totally in tune from one to the other !

some facts from wiki:
the interval of one cent is much too small to be heard between successive notes.
(the interval between two adjacent piano keys) is equal to 100 cents.
The just noticeable difference for this unit is about 6 cents.
It is difficult to establish how many cents are perceptible to humans; this accuracy varies greatly from person to person.
One author stated that humans can distinguish a difference in pitch of about 5-6 cents.

I'll be back a little later...

last edit -
per Earvana " a typical guitar is +4 cents sharp/-2 cents flat . . .
and wiki-The just noticeable difference for this unit is about 6 cents. :dontknow:

 

[Justinginn]

"Close enough for Jazz"
:icon_biggrin:

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I use the Jellifish to record supplemental acoustic parts, very nice.